The last month or so has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride
(and I’m not keen on rollercoasters) to say the least. Following my scans at the end of August I was
told I wouldn’t be having an operation to remove the tumour as the metastases
on my lungs had changed so palliative chemotherapy was the most sensible next
step to take. This was a huge blow as
you can imagine, secondary tumours are a lot trickier to deal with apparently,
although I’m still not that clear as to why. Still I was determined to fight
and get going with chemo as soon as possible. A few days later however, I was
blue-lighted to A&E with suspected sepsis.
This changed everything as chemotherapy can’t be given if there is
infection and the only way to get rid of the infection (caused by an abscess on
the tumour) is to remove the tumour – and suddenly the operation was back on the
cards! When previously all I wanted was
to get the damn thing out of me, now I was panicking about my lungs and wanting
to get on with chemotherapy and the operation would delay this by 6-8 weeks.
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| That tumour will be removed one day |
The hospital stay ended up being a gruelling two and a half
weeks whilst they got the infection under control and got me ready for
surgery. Prior to going under, the
surgeon explained the procedure to me.
They planned to remove the tumour and abscess and whilst there give me a
colonoscopy and reverse my ileostomy. Fine,
ok, all good, I headed into theatre and the next thing I know is I’m in the
recovery suite in absolute agony. After
a few moments of coming round I realised I still had the ileostomy and my heart
sank. I figured something had gone
wrong; turns out after all that, all they could do was drain the abscess as
removing the tumour would be too risky because it’s still too close to my pelvic
bone. So it’s STILL bloody there and chemotherapy has been delayed by 3 weeks
faffing time, plus another 3 or 4 weeks whilst I recover from the operation. I
seriously feel like nothing can ever just go to plan. I'm totally determined it will be removed one day!
Some positives from my hospital stay: 1. People bring you
rainbow cake and more chocolate than you could ever eat, 2. People teach you
how to make old school friendship bracelets to while away the time, 3. Nope, I can’t
think of a third.
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| Big hugs & bracelets |
Anyway, moving on from that fiasco, last week I had a portacath (I know, I
had to google too) inserted which is one step closer to being chemo-ready. This was simultaneously one of the coolest
and one of the most uncomfortable things to ever happen to me. A portacath is a line to administer drugs
directly into a vein, reducing the need for catheters which over time cause
weakening of the veins, and my veins seem to refuse to have them in anyway.
It’s a small plastic disc that sits completely under the skin in the chest,
with a plastic tube that travels up and into to the vein, which joins the vena
cava and down into the heart. That’s really cool, right? Max reckons I’m some kind of robot now… I
prefer bionic woman but robot will do I suppose. Either way, this and the fact I took him to
the Lego Ninjago Movie, means in his eyes I’m so much cooler now than I was a
few days ago! Getting it there was not so cool.
It was inserted under local anaesthetic using x-ray to guide the radiographer. I didn’t feel any pain but wow was it uncomfortable and weird. It’s so so strange to have someone prodding
and poking at your chest in such a forceful way it knocks the wind out of you. Then
I could actually feel the tube travelling around inside my chest. I was really panicky and shaky throughout (a nurse had to
press down on my leg for the whole hour as it was shaking so much) but I did manage to take a sneaky pic of the X-ray afterwards though! I now have a scar on my chest and a small bump under the skin. Once the wound heals though, there shouldn't be much to see and because the port is completely covered (protected) by the skin, it's safe from being pulled at by little hands.
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| Bionic woman! |
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| Scars are cool (Photo: Becky Williams, |
